Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

Understanding dawned, and she whispered, "Sling?" He nodded again, his voice low. "Leadshot moulded in a ball of wax. It's quiet and doesn't kill."

Together they moved to where the man lay. She knelt, opening the little leather box holding halfadozen charged syringes, wondering at what she had just seen. A sling? She knew his ability with a thrown knife and with the little wooden clubs he sometimes used, but in the year since he joined The Network he had never spoken of being skilled with a sling. This was something new to intrigue Krolli and his men.

A minute later they were at the French windows of a spare bedroom according to Danny Chavasse's plan. Bellman appeared to place great reliance on his guards, for the windows simply had interior bolts and these caused no delay when Willie had cut a small quadrant from the glass. Using a pencil torch, Modesty led the way across the room and out into a corridor where a low-wattage wall-lamp burned. She halted, handed a syringe to Willie, and moved off to the right, towards the bedroom used by the girl called Sandra. Willie moved left towards Bellman's room. She had given him the job of dealing with Bellman because a glimpse of a female figure, though masked, would identify Modesty Blaise for Bellman, and this was better avoided.

Willie paused at the door and very carefully eased the handle round. As he inched the door open a hinge squeaked. He stopped, waited, then began again. As he crossed the threshold the light went on, and he was gazing at a girl with luxuriant dark brown hair who lay in a double bed. Her feet were towards him and she was almost prone, but with her head turned to look over her shoulder towards him, one arm reaching out to a lightswitch set in the bedhead.

Her eyes were wide and startled as she stared for a bare moment at the masked figure, a moment in which Willie knew that Danny's information regarding the bedrooms was wrong, or there had been some change. This was the bedroom of Bellman's girl. She had woken at the creak of the hinge and now she was flinging aside the bedclothes to free herself as she lunged towards the bedside cabinet where an automatic lay.

Evidently Bellman's reliance on his guards was less than total after all, and the girl's hand was almost on the gun when Willie's forward dive brought him within reach of her foot and he hauled her back across the bed on her stomach, the nightdress rucking up to her waist.

He pushed the ankle he held down behind the knee of her other leg, bending that leg back towards her buttocks so the ankle was trapped in the crotch of the kneejoint and he could hold her in position with one hand. She was struggling and panting now as he said quietly in Spanish, "Do not be afraid, senorita. You will not be hurt."

The needle went into her buttock and she gasped, head turned to glare back at him with mingled rage and shock, both transformed to bewilderment as he went on reassuringly, "Let us count backwards from ten to one, senorita. It prevents insomnia." She began to struggle again as he started counting, but then her eyes glazed, her head drooped to rest on the bed, her body went limp.

Willie heaved a sigh of relief, pulled her nightdress down, eased her to a sleeping position in the bed, and drew the bedclothes up about her. He put out the light and went from the room, closing the door after him. She would sleep for a full two hours, perhaps longer.

The door of a room along the corridor was open and the light was on. When Willie entered he found Modesty putting away a hypodermic. She had taken off her skimask, and now he pulled off his own. A man in his middle forties lay unconscious on the bed, a goodlooking man with dark hair and a strong square face. Willie said, "Did he see you, Princess?"

She shook her head. "I woke him up with the torch shining in his eyes and put him out with the kongo when he lifted his head." She put the syringecase away in her small pack. "Not that it really matters. He'll guess." She stood looking down at Bellman. "It was a surprise finding him here. Danny got the rooms wrong."

"Well, making sense of what a Spanish maid says when you can't ask straight questions…"

He let the words fade as she gave him a look that seemed almost to hold a touch of affection. "I know that, Willie. You don't have to defend him. How did you manage with the girl?"

"Okay, but I gave 'er a fright. The door creaked and woke 'er up, then the light went on and she saw me and dived for a gun, but I got to 'er in time and hauled 'er back before she could reach it."

"She's all right?"

"Asleep, but fine." He thought for a moment. "Got a nice bottom."

She looked at him, amusement sparkling in her eyes, and for a moment he thought he might see her laugh for the first time. Then she shook her head, patted his arm and said, "Let's get on with it."

Ten minutes later Bellman lay on the floor in his study. He now wore a dressinggown over his pyjamas and a slipper on one foot. Another slipper lay nearby as if it had fallen off. He was close to one end of a pedestal desk, an arm outstretched with the hand hidden beneath the pedestal. Clutched in the hand was a slightly crumpled document of fifteen pages. A portable typewriter, carried in Willie's backpack and now bearing Bellman's fingerprints, stood on a side table.

Modesty watched as Willie crouched by the big safe set in one wall of the room, securing a thick ring of plastic explosive round the lock. When he was satisfied he inserted a small detonator and unreeled thin flex across the room to a power point, plugging the transformer at the end of the flex into the socket. Modesty rolled up the thick rug by the fireplace and together they arranged it carefully over the safe. Willie moved a heavy filing cabinet across the study and stood it against the rug.

When he switched on at the power point the explosion was surprisingly muffled and undramatic. He moved the filing cabinet away, the rug fell to the floor, and the safe door opened easily when he pulled on the handle. "We're in luck," he said. "Can't always get it right first time."

"You earn your luck," she said. "Nice work, Willie."

"My pleasure."

They went quickly through the contents of the safe, taking the few thousand American dollars and a number of significant records, scattering other material between the safe and where Bellman lay. Modesty crouched to put the selected papers in her pack. "I'll pass these on to a man called Tarrant I've done business with," she said. "He can circulate the drug enforcement agencies, maybe nail some other distributors."

She looked round the study. All was arranged as planned. She and Willie had worn surgical gloves and left no fingerprints. An observer of the scene would readily deduce that Bellman had been attacked and robbed, and that he had been trying to hide an important document when he passed out. She said, "All right, make the call now. Here's Captain Candela's home number." She passed him the telephone pad on the desk.

Two nights earlier Willie had climbed a telegraph pole fifty yards from the western wall of the grounds and fixed a radio bug to the wires serving Bellman's house. For several hours next day he and Modesty had lain hidden with a small receiver in woods bordering the road. Bellman had made several calls out, giving Willie an opportunity to listen carefully to his voice. As an unexpected bonus, one of the calls had been to Captain Candela, the area Chief of Police, revealing that Bellman addressed him by his Christian name.

Captain Candela was sound asleep when his bedside phone rang. He stirred irritably, and his wife jabbed him with an elbow. "It's the phone, Javier."

"I know, I know." He rolled on his side and groped for the instrument. "Candela here. What is it?"

A voice he recognized, urgent with panic, said, "It's Bellman… there's been a raid, Javier… they've blown my safe, taken papers-" the voice dropped to a shocked whisper, "Oh God, they're still here ! I'll try to—"